


Becoming Human

by raspberryhunter



Series: Being Human [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Ratings: PG, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raspberryhunter/pseuds/raspberryhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gold can feel the cracks in the curse. He waits for the day when the curse will finally be broken, the day when Belle will know who she is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming Human

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to "Human Again;" AU for all events in "Skin Deep" and forward in the Enchanted Forest/Earth chronology, particularly for the character of Emma, for reasons that should be evident from the text (especially that of "Human Again"). Warnings for wooblyangst!Gold.

Regina comes into the shop. Gold just barely restrains himself from frowning, knowing why she is there. The Mayor does this, sometimes, to gloat. "And what can I do for you today, Madame Mayor?" he inquires, with a veneer of affability. 

"Oh, I'm just looking around," Regina returns brightly, but Gold can tell that she is looking, as is Gold, at the door, waiting.

And right on cue, Belle -- Rose -- comes into Gold's shop, as she does every day. "I'm -- I'm looking for a present for my father," she stammers. She has said a variant of this every day since they came. She has never, of course, bought anything.

"A tea set, perhaps?" Gold suggests. "One of the cups is chipped, but it is a lovely set all the same." He says a variant of this to her every day as well.

"No--- no, thank you," Rose says. She glances quickly at Regina. Gold knows this will not be one of the days that she asks him a question about one of his pieces ("Why do you have a baby mobile?") -- a small thing, but it makes the difference between the bad days and the worse days.

He lets out a breath as she all but runs toward the door. Regina turns toward him as the door shuts behind Rose, the mayor's perfectly made-up face brimming with barely pent-up glee. "Lovely girl, isn't she?" Regina offers conversationally. Twisting the knife, Gold knows.

"Yes, a very sweet girl," Gold says, obediently.

"I'm not sure how bright she is," Regina muses. "Rumors are she isn't doing well in college."

 _I wonder who started those rumors_ , Gold thinks savagely. But it's true that the curse has turned Belle's bright, lively mind into something shy and retiring, with murky depths. From time to time, he will see in her questions an echo of the Belle he knew, but it is very rare.

Regina is looking at him keenly, the better to savor his discomfort. "It's probably all the time she spends with Justin, you know." 

Gold keeps his face impassive. It takes an effort, to be sure, but he is not about to give Regina the satisfaction. Not when she gets so much satisfaction as it is. "Well, they are engaged; I imagine it would be odd for them not to spend time together," he points out, and denied the response she so transparently craves, Regina eventually leaves. 

Gold thinks, if the Queen wants revenge on him, she has succeeded. To see Belle day after day, not knowing who she is, not knowing who he is, sleepwalking through the motions of the nightmare that is her life -- himself knowing exactly what is going on, every second of time passing, and knowing she could be so much more -- it is not to be borne. But he bears it, day after day, and only winces slightly when Belle shrinks away from him. When, passing along the street, he hears a group of fellow students from the local college making fun of her shyness. When he sees _her_ , hand-in-hand with Justin, Gaston-who-was, her face faintly troubled, as if she senses dimly that something is not quite right but cannot quite make out what it is. (Justin, who is missing his right pinky and his left big toe, as if they have been snipped off. But that is another matter entirely.)

Sometimes he looks around Storybrooke the way he imagines Belle would see it, and this is even worse. Mary Margaret, sleepwalking through a series of dreadful dates, most of which he is unfortunate enough to actually witness while out to dinner. (Which he eats alone. Every night.) Leroy, getting drunk every night. Ashley, vomiting every morning in the diner and fighting with Sean and his father, publicly, every night. None of them noticing, except for Regina, who is happy to gloat over the whole affair, that every day, each week, is just like the one before, that no one is growing or changing.

(He thinks, when he can bring himself to think of it, that Belle was right. That it was wrong, what they did. And he wonders if Belle will ever forgive him for what they have done.)

*

The first crack in the curse is initiated by the Queen herself-- by Regina, Gold corrects. He has always known that the Queen would not be happy simply to watch the destruction of others' happiness. She would eventually want someone to share her life with, someone more than a docile Huntsman. She would eventually want to know the family life that she, puzzled, has seen elsewhere.

And so Regina Mills orders Mr. Gold to find her a baby to adopt.

He takes care to find the baby. Oh yes, very great care. One Emma Swan, placed for adoption eighteen years ago -- Gold has always known exactly where Emma is, and knows quite well that Emma has gotten herself in some trouble, trouble she does not want to tell her loving parents about. He makes arrangements.

Gold gives the baby boy to Regina but thinks: Belle would not be content with this. Belle would find some way to save him.

*

Regina is suspicious, of course, at the friendship springing up between Gold and Henry, but in the end decides it is harmless. And in fact she is correct that Gold starts by having no ulterior motive. Gold started talking to Henry only because he imagined that Belle would like it, Belle who cared for men who were turned into roses and for babies who were left by the side of the road.

And soon enough he seeks out Henry for the boy's own sake. Henry is bright and loving and imaginative. Gold teaches him to play chess, gives him books to read, shows him how to carve a rough animal from a stick. Occasionally they walk in the woods, and Gold shows him the wolf watching them cannily, all but hidden, or the flower another person might tread over, unseeing.

Henry reminds Gold, very faintly, of another boy that he does not think about.

*

When Henry is ten, Regina stops homeschooling him and puts him into the school system. Another tiny crack in the curse; Regina needs the other children in the class to behave differently, day by day, so they do. Regina needs Mary Margaret to teach Henry different things, so she does.

And _that_ crack in the curse allows Gold, finally, to act. "Miss Blanchard," he says to her, holding out the book, "I'd like you to give this to Henry." He would not have been able to do this when she taught the same subject every day, said the same words every day. Mary Margaret would not even have understood what he meant, would not have taken the book. 

But now she does understand. Now she can put out her hand to take the book, which she does, somewhat bewildered. "With all due respect, Mr. Gold, why can't you give it to him yourself?"

He turns his hands up. "Henry is dear to me, and the book is an heirloom. Such a present might be... misinterpreted... by Henry's mother," he says. (Or all too well interpreted. Regina cannot find out, not yet, that he can act independently from her control.) "From a teacher, who is concerned about his academic well-being... well, that's less likely to be questioned."

"Ah," says Mary Margaret, faintly. Their eyes meet in understanding. Mary Margaret may not remember her life before, but she knows she doesn't trust the Mayor, even if she doesn't understand why.

*

Soon after that, Gold wakes feeling more alert, more awake, than he has since he arrived in Storybrooke. Almost happy. There is a feeling of lightness in his chest that he cannot identify.

Rose comes in, the way she's come in every day since the day they came here. But there is something different about her -- she looks confused; she looks around her as if it is all new. His heart starts beating faster. He realizes that the unfamiliar feeling he has had all morning is _hope_.

"I'm -- I'm looking for a present for my father," she stammers. Gold's heart sinks again. Perhaps nothing has changed. "A tea set, perhaps?" he offers, somewhat woodenly. "One of the cups is chipped, but it is a lovely set all the same."

Rose looks at it as if she has never seen it before. She meets his eyes for what, he thinks, is the first time in twenty-eight years. "I -- might get that. Yes. How much is it?"

He tells her a number. He will never afterwards be able to remember what the number is. She gives him money, and he does not even bother to count it. "I can wrap it," he says to her. She smiles. "What service!" she exclaims, almost teasing. He wraps up each cup, slowly, thinking, _that is the first smile I have seen from her in twenty-eight years_. 

When she leaves, he locks up the store and walks through town. He is unsurprised to see that the great clock in the town square has started to run again.

*

It is that evening that he meets Emma, who has blown into town with the wind, bringing change in her wake. "I'm Emma Swan," she says, frank and fearless. "I'm glad to meet you. Henry told me about you. I'm glad you've been such a good friend to him."

In the course of the ensuing conversation, Gold is relieved to see that she seems like a fairly well-adjusted, happy person. One less thing he will have to answer for, when he sees Belle again.

"Henry's a delightful lad," Gold says. "If it would not be too forward, Miss Swan, I'd like to say that I'm glad we had a chance to get to know him."

Emma gives him an uncertain smile. "I was adopted myself, Mr. Gold, and had the most wonderful parents any child could ask for. I wanted that for Henry as well -- I wanted to give him his best chance."

Gold wonders what Emma would be like, had she simply appeared by the side of the road, as Rumplestiltskin's original spell would have had her do. He looks at Emma's open face, imagines it closed and suspicious, and decides not to wonder any more.

*

He can feel the cracks in the curse. A hairline, at first, but widening with each new inroad Emma makes on Storybrooke. Ashley and Sean move in together. Dr. Hopper stands up to the Mayor. When Emma becomes Sheriff, with his help, he feels the crack widen precipitously. He wonders that the Queen -- that Regina -- does not feel it, does not panic and run. But where would she run?

Rose still comes to his shop. She is drawn there, it almost seems. She comes every day, like she did before Emma came -- but now it is better. Every day she asks him a question, ranging from the sort of inquiries about his merchandise that she had before ("No, really. Why do you have a baby mobile?") to more general questions ("What is life like outside Storybrooke?") and even philosophical questions ("What do you think it's like, being in a coma?" she asks, when David Nolan wakes up). He can see her mind opening up, trying to find the cracks in the curse. He can see her curse-induced fear of him falling away. It is almost like they are becoming friends. Again.

"What do you think of the whole Mary Margaret and David thing?" she asks him, some weeks later.

"Now, is that any of my business?" he counters.

She frowns. "I suppose not. But... I feel bad for Mary Margaret, honestly."

Whatever Gold had expected her to say, it wasn't that. "For deceiving Kathyrn?"

She gives him a playful slap. "No, silly! Of course that was wrong. I'm not saying it wasn't wrong. But... it takes two to tango, you know. And no one seems to be ostracizing David the way they're going after Mary Margaret, even though he was the one who was married."

Gold blinks. It had seemed clear to him that Mary Margaret was criticized more heavily because the curse was more finely attuned to Snow White than to Prince Charming. This aspect of it -- how it would look from the outside -- has never occurred to him. "I... see what you mean, dear. Of course, what can you do to fix that?"

He means that Emma is the only one who can fix the mess the curse has brought. He doesn't expect the arrested expression on Rose's face. "You're right. I haven't thought. I'm part of the problem too. Mary Margaret was looking for volunteers for the Miner's Day celebration..." She trails off and nods, decisively. "I think I will. Thanks."

She runs out the door. Gold stares after her.

When she comes back the next day with Leroy and demands that Gold buy candles from her, Gold can't refuse, even though he _hates_ those damn nuns.

*

Gold tries not to think too hard about how he always tries to do inventory at about the time that he expects Rose to show up, so that he can have an excuse to be nearer her. Occasionally one of them is clumsy and bumps into the other. Lately, this seems to be happening more and more.

Once Justin comes with her and glowers at Gold. 

"Justin says I spend too much time here," Rose announces, the next day.

"Does he?" Gold murmurs. 

She frowns. "He seems to be getting awfully possessive. I don't remember him being like this, before."

There was no before, Gold thinks tiredly. Though Rose is correct; Gaston was not particularly possessive in the Enchanted Forest, before ever Belle met Rumplestiltskin, at least according to what Belle told him. Though, of course, Gaston had no reason to be jealous at that time, and Justin does.

*

Today Rose is in a pensive mood. She says, "Do you ever think that-- no, it's a stupid question, I shouldn't bother you."

"You may ask any question you like, Miss French," Gold says quietly, "and I promise not to mock you." He moves away from her to place a ring in a drawer. True love used to follow that ring; but now it is simply one memento among many.

She comes up behind him, touches his elbow tentatively. "Do you ever think that there are realities beyond our own?" 

He tries not to tremble at her touch and her words. He doesn't think he is doing a very good job at it. "Yes, I do, Miss French. Though I would advise you not to ask this question to others; they may not have the same degree of... open-mindedness... that I do." He shudders to think what would happen if Rose said this to the Mayor.

She moves closer to him. "I'm -- glad that I can talk to you about these things. It's nice to have someone understand. I tried to talk to Justin, but he said I was just being silly."

"You are quite far from being silly, dear," Gold says, turning to face her.

"There must -- there must be more than this," Rose says, looking at him intently. "More than this life. I've been feeling that more and more lately." She reaches out, touches his fingers timidly, withdraws her hand, suddenly shy.

A curse, Gold knows, is always most desperate when it knows it is being broken. He can tell by the way it is wrapping its tendrils around Snow White and Prince Charming. Soon it will change. Soon Emma will make her move. Soon she will come to Gold and say -- what? _Help me. Together we can defeat her._ But not yet.

He knows what will happen if he gives in to Rose. They'll call him a dirty old man, a engagement-breaker, which doesn't bother him; they'll call her a slut and a gold-digger, which does. Justin will probably challenge him to a duel, or egg his house, or something similarly sophomoric. He can see how it will end: Gold defending from a blow, Justin seriously hurt (more than a missing finger), Rose (Belle) aghast, turning away. He can see it in his mind's eye as if it has already happened. The curse will turn their love into something shabby and tainted and wrong. And he cannot do that to Belle.

And in any case it does not sit well with him to kindle a romance with her when she does not even know who she is. When he does not know how she will look at him when she finally understands exactly what they have done to all of Storybrooke, what has been done to Belle herself. He hears Belle saying in his head, _it's wrong, what we're doing. Condemning them like this, and they don't know._

That is what he tells himself, anyway. But with the reality of Rose here in his shop, it is vastly more difficult.

He touches her wrist -- he should not, but he does not have the strength to deny himself that much -- and pretends not to notice the way she shivers when he does. "Go home," he says gently. "Justin is waiting for you."

"Do you," she says, and stops. She moistens her lips with her tongue, nervously. Gold closes his eyes. "What do you do when you love someone -- you do love him -- but it doesn't seem quite right? When you don't think it's a forever kind of thing? When you don't know that you want to be with him? When you think maybe you love him as a friend, not as a lover? When -- when you think there might be someone else?"

Gold opens his eyes. Rose is so tantalizingly near. Her soft lips are slightly parted as she looks at him, hope and confused yearning all together in her eyes. All he would have to do would be to reach out and touch her cheek. All he would have to do would be to lean forward and kiss her.

He says to the curse in his head, _I will not._ There will be time for that when the curse is broken. Perhaps. He draws back and says to her, gently, "Then tell him so. Tell him, and you can start over again, with a clean slate. Not because -- " he swallows, painfully -- "not because there might be someone else, but simply because you don't think it's right."

She studies his face for a long minute. His endurance is already stretched to the breaking point; if she goes past suggestive words and timid touches, he will be lost. But finally she nods, turns away, and leaves him alone in the shop.

He sighs. Emma had better make her move soon. It's going to be a long, long wait until she does.


End file.
